The World of Persephone

Persephone World Primer

By: Silas Ardeat

I am being forced to write this under duress. What Student of the Rookery doesn't know the world they live in? To think these teachers were once my students. But if I am to write this, I am only doing it once. That means this is the only copy and they cannot edit it. Brok smells like a boar. 

But on to the task of writing a short history of the world as physical therapy…

The world we live in is known to most as Persephone. Why? I am not completely sure. Some scholars have found evidence of this name written in the bark of the Great Trees. Others have found the name scrawled in texts hidden deep beneath the earth. Others claim to have spoken to deific beings and were told that this is the name of the world. However the name was found, it has stuck and I don't see it changing anytime soon. We have a great many other things to worry about. 

As you can see by looking out your window, the great expanse that is Persephone is a broken mess. A flat plane of earth and stone held together by the roots of the aforementioned Great Trees. We float in space circling a Mysterious Star that appeared a thousand years ago and we are circled by a moon that does its best to block the light of that star. Mithroux, our star, provides light and energy to the creatures and plants of the world and many believe she also provides light to the Trees in order for them to stay healthy. The Moon on the other hand seemingly brings out the worst in all things. As night falls and the Moon rises, men and beast alike become more… Ugly. More likely to kill, more likely to destroy. I will discuss the Moon and Night in another chapter of this book. And I will write of its name there, for speaking or even thinking the name of things can give them more power. But thankfully for men, the work of the late crystal machinist Cid Fomalhaut has given us a reprieve from the Moon's effects. The light from the crystals creates a local barrier and staves off the worst of the madness. We will go over the specifics as well in another chapter… So many things to write about. 

Back on topic though, the planet we live on is split up into many pieces but the most prominent are the ones I will quickly introduce here . There are five main continents that are all separated by massive chasms. Vigfrid in the North, Shalan in the East, Fangrun & Kharmoria in the South and Nahiyah in the West. Oh and the Wastes in the center of it all. These continents shift, rise and fall as the roots holding them do the same. Each land mass has its own bit of ocean that shifts and tends to spill off the edge as the land moves. The water spirits within the waters also create whirlpools and large swells in the oceans adding to the chaos. Some of these can even spill from one continent to the next, creating a sort of water bridge that some insane sailors take advantage of to travel between lands. Others have tried making bridges or coaxing the roots to form something similar between continents, but nothing has worked yet. Teleportation magics and Flight are the only things that truly work. Both are difficult to accomplish but at least with teleportation you don't risk getting torn apart by Fetid Owls in the north or the Chromatic Dragons that sometimes travel along the chasms.  

Each continent has a distinctive ecosystem, peoples and problems. Here in the North we mostly deal with the frigid temperatures further north and the ever present threat of the Blackwood and it’s Fae. Our peoples have gathered together for the most part, staying together to fend off the threats beyond the walls of all our cities. Discussions of leaving this land died off long ago. Stupid as it may be, we are a proud nation. We have two trees on this Continent, though one is a bit difficult to get to as it is out in the center of a chasm in the ocean. That tree is known as Tifaret. A beautiful red leafed tree from which a powerful liquid can be drawn and used similarly to the Crystals that fall from Malkuth, the other tree in the north. Though getting to the tree is not the only difficulty. Many great beasts swarm around it to draw power off of it and defend it fervently. That is why we mainly focus on harvesting crystals from Malkuth for our protection.  

The Continent to the south east of us is mostly a mystery. The mainland is shrouded in a thick mist that no researcher has yet returned from, so we are unsure of what happened to the people there. Though admittedly, we don’t send many people there any longer. Fixing our home has been a higher priority than learning about other lands. We aren’t sure if a tree rests within the mist but we do know there is one out in the oceans of the East. Netzach is a tree that lives out in the open ocean of the east and has become a hub for many travelers over the years. Dozens and dozens of peoples have tied themselves to its roots or trunk and over time it has become a nation of Islands known simply as The Flotilla. The Tree itself has one singular chrysalis like crystal up near the top of its trunk that seems to spread its energy very far. Underneath the tree, a place known as the Reef has spent much of its time protecting the oceans and collecting their magical Shells lost long ago. According to their leaders, they have nearly every magical shell they once lost but still seek out the remaining few. If you ever find one, bringing it to them would gain you their favor. 

Further Southward, we get to the continents of Fangrun and Kharmornia. The two nations both rest on the same mass of land but could not be more different. Fangrun is a dry arid savannah that is soaked in the blood of the constantly warring Gnoll tribes that inhabit it. Around the time that our world was shattered, the Gnolls took the lands for themselves, destroying what was once known as the kingdom of Hyperion in the process. Nearly all other species of intelligent life were wiped out as the Gnolls claimed their “Holy Land”. Since those days the Gnolls now seek out knowledge and power from foreigners in order to hopefully gain some upper hand against their enemy tribes and take control of the capital city that surrounds one of the two trees in the south. Chochmah. A massive tree that stands in the remnants of an old volcano whose crystals fill the caverns and holes throughout the volcano's corpse.  A few corners of the nation still hold out against the Gnolls however. One of them is the only known community of goodly Goblins in a city known as Turin. Deva of Io visits frequently and is quite fond of them. 

The other nation, Kharmoria, is smaller in scale but holds two separate groups. The Kharmorians and the Svartalves. They share domain over their tree, Chesed, which is more a wildly massive flower than a tree. Surrounding this tree is a lush jungle full of wildlife and cities among the trees. The pollen that often spews forth from this tree gives energy out to the surrounding land and people and fends off the madness of night from this land almost entirely. The Svartalves are one of the few groups of people we know of who hold onto their homes beneath the surface of the land. They are masters of earthen magics and are some of the few beings able to traverse long distances with ease. The Kharmorians are a generally good people and are as varied as we are here in the North in appearance. Together these two nations have built one of the few true safe havens in our world. 

The last of the habitable nations is that in the West. The proper name we know it as is Nahiyah but many simply refer to it as the Fuschia Sandsea due to the pink purple hue of the sand that covers nearly every inch of the land. The sands apparently used to be the typical yellow gray color of sand found elsewhere but when their Tree, Yesod, rose up, it's pink crystal leaves made their way throughout the land and were ground up by the constant moving of the sand and eventually it all mixed together. Because of this, they never truly experience the darkness of night as the sand itself is full of magical dust that glows throughout the night. Quite a beautiful sight back when I could see. I assume it still is. The most prominent societies here are that of the Druidic Oak Knowers who guard their tree, the Eladrin that live at the center of the sandsea in a strange grouping of towers and the Dragons of the Great Dragon Bazaar. There are a few smaller settlements as well who do their best to try and survive the scorching heat of the desert by staying close to the shattered mountains that surround the central desert.  There are rumors of a second tree being out in the ocean far west somewhere as well. But I have not heard of any solid proof of it being found, only rumors of a tree that can be found only when one is lost at sea. 

The final large continent would be the one just south of us and in the center of all the others I have introduced. We simply call it The Wastes, or the Wastelands. It is at the epicenter of where ancient calamities known as the High Storms would end and from first hand experience I can tell you it is highly dangerous. Blind monstrosities roam the caverns beneath the land and gigantic beasts walk along the surface, crushing and eating anything they find that moves. Most do not believe me and the others who have been there, but there is some kind of hierarchy to the madness and most definitely a being or group of beings that are at the top. I saw their home back when I traveled there. It is not a place I would suggest any go to without great preparation and an even greater cause. 

Besides our mortal lands, beneath us and supposedly on the other side of our realm exists the land of the elementals. Creatures of pure fire, water, air, etc. that help our world to continue existing. Water Elementals to fill the oceans and move the waters. Fire elementals to bring up heat from beneath and spread nutrient rich soil up with volcanic eruptions. Air elementals to help move the winds and bring about weather events and push the seasons along. Some worship these beings as gods or spirits. Others worship the trees and their light. But faith and discussion similar to such concepts is not something we will get into here in a world introduction. Just know that the world is widely still a mystery to us here in Vigfrid. All of these things are still being learned about. And if you should learn more or learn something new, it should be recorded in the journals given to you here at the Rookery. We take and spread such knowledge so that everyone can learn from the travels of our students and staff. 

I shall go into more depth regarding all these nations, and other smaller ones I did not cover in this short introduction, in future chapters of this world primer. The primer that I am being forced to write under duress. Thought I wasn’t going to remark on that again huh? Helena can be so stubborn. Anyways, our nation is very focused on itself at the moment and has been since as far back as I can remember. And I am rather old. Hopefully you can help bring us out of the darkness that surrounds us every day and into a brighter future. I look forward to teaching you what I know as the Master of wills here at the Rookery. 

• Silas 

Footnote: I’ve no idea why Deva loves those goblins so much. But what is truly scary is how much they love Her.